Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

Carnelian’s fingers strayed to one that was reminding him of someone. He lifted it. It took him a while to see who it was. The mask had something about the mouth that made it resemble Fern’s. Carnelian was about to put it down, not wanting such a painful reminder; instead he placed it over his face. It seemed to fit well enough, though he knew that wearing it for any length of time would soon reveal where it did not perfectly fit his face. He turned to regard the ammonites kneeling, waiting with the strips of linen, the unguents and all the apparatus they had brought from the purgatory at Osidian’s command. The masks they wore had solid spirals for eyes. They had tried pleading excuses: that only the quaestor was qualified to administer the ritual protection; that the purity of everything in the sanctum had been contaminated when it had been breached by the black barbarians. Osidian had dismissed all their objections with contempt.

Carnelian approached the prostrate men. ‘Here, I have chosen.’ He offered the mask and one of the ammonites reached out blindly. He put the mask with Fern’s lips into the trembling hands.

When Osidian had selected a mask he commanded the ammonites to begin the procedure. Reluctantly, one of them rose to his feet, a length of beadcord in his hand. Reading it with his fingers he began to intone in Quya: ‘You who are Chosen shall now make ready to leave this place. You who are Chosen must take all precaution before leaving the sanctity of this place.’

As the blind spiral eyes regarded him Carnelian recalled the time so long ago when he had endured this ritual in the Tower in the Sea. ‘We are supposed to give a response.’

‘A response?’ Osidian said.

‘Something about the obeying of the Law.’

Osidian threw his hand up in irritation. ‘Ammonite, dispense with the catechism. Limit yourself to what is essential.’

‘Essential, Celestial?’

‘The practical elements,’ Osidian said, his voice rising dangerously.

As the ammonite fell to the ground the forehead of his mask struck a dull clang on the floor.

‘The ranga, Celestial, the filtered mask, the embalming.’

‘Well, get on with it.’

Carnelian glanced at Osidian, unsure why he was so angry. With surprise, he sensed Osidian was apprehensive. He had to admit he felt the same.

Under the direction of the ammonite, the others began the procedure. Ranga shoes were produced, raised upon a green, a black and a red support. Osidian refused to anoint them himself and so it was the ammonites who applied the unguent. They stripped them and cleansed them with chill menthol. Climbing onto the ranga, Carnelian bore the tickle of their styluses as they painted warding symbols and designs upon his skin. When they had wafted the ink dry they submerged its itch beneath a glaze of myrrh. The odour reminded him first of Aurum, then of his wounded father, then once again, unexpectedly, of the scent of the mother trees. That brought tears.

They began winding him in linen, the first layer sticking to the glaze. As more and more strips wound round him they tightened as they dried. The feeling of being trapped swelled in him almost to panic. He felt they were preparing him for his tomb. At last they brought the mask they had prepared. He regarded the hollow thing with horror. He shuddered as they fitted it to his face. His breathing hard and fast was restricted by the gold. It became a roaring in his ears as he forced the air in through the narrow mouth of the mask. The nostril pads smothered his nose. Ill-fitting, the mask squeezed out some liquid from the pads that dribbled down his lip into his mouth. Bitter, bitter taste and its numbing reek pushing cold needles up into the root of his nose to sting his eyes. Forced tears blinded him to what little he could see through the eyeslits.

‘We hide our faces from the world like lepers,’ Osidian was saying, but Carnelian barely registered the words as he struggled to choke back the horror that he was buried alive.

As Carnelian and Osidian appeared from the legate ’ s chambers, the Marula guarding the door fell back, gaping. Carnelian almost stumbled on his ranga. In their stares he saw too clearly what he had once more become. It sickened him to be back behind a mask looking down on fearful men. He wanted to cry out that he was still the same man they knew, but he had chosen his path. At least the Marula were on their feet. Something pale moved in the corner of his vision: Osidian’s hand shaping a command. Carnelian half turned, hearing the ammonites behind him settling to the ground. Glancing at each other, the warriors, reluctantly, began falling to their knees.

In obedience to Osidian’s summons, the Legate and the other Lesser Chosen commanders were waiting for him by the door to the purgatory. A pall of myrrh smoke was rising from a ring of censers set around them. Only the Legate, and those subordinates who earlier had accompanied him to the cothon, stood outside the curtain of smoke, safe in their ritual protection. All knelt as Osidian approached. Carnelian noted that these Masters abased themselves more quickly than had the Marula. Osidian beckoned the Legate to approach him. Though his mask gave the man an air of imperious indifference, Carnelian detected anxiety in his gait and in the way he sank before Osidian.

Osidian pointed to the collar at the Legate’s throat. ‘Surrender that to me, my Lord.’

The Legate’s hand went up to the jade and iron. ‘Celestial, this was put about my neck by the hands of the God Emperor Themselves.’

‘The might of the Commonwealth properly belongs to the House of the Masks. It is in the name of that House I take back from you the legion you were lent.’

As the Legate hesitated, Osidian turned his mask just enough to allow the Legate to see the Marula reflected in it. The man must have understood the warning, for he turned to the other Lesser Chosen. ‘You are my witnesses. I have no choice but to yield my command to the Lord Nephron.’

This said, the Legate reached behind his neck, released the collar and offered it to Osidian, who coiled it around his fist. He stepped past the Master who had been Legate and addressed the other commanders. ‘I am now acting Legate. Serve me well, my Lords, and I shall reward you with blood and iron. Fail me and be assured that, if I do not destroy you, you will surely suffer the vengeance of the House of the Masks.’

Osidian’s gold face regarded them a while, then he indicated the ammonites who had followed him from the tower. ‘These shall prepare you for the outer world. I do not know how long it will be before any of us shall walk again upon sanctified ground.’

Even through the closed gates of the cothon, Carnelian could hear the squealing of brass. As they began to open they belched a reek of naphtha and dragons. The view widening between the parting portals was of a vast and complex machine come to life.

Morunasa and his Oracles, coming to greet them, faltered. Dazzled by Carnelian’s and Osidian’s masks they were forced to squint. Morunasa found enough composure to address Osidian, but was ignored as the Master half turned to Carnelian. ‘Behold, my Lord, the sinews and technology of our power.’

Carnelian could see the cothon in motion, shrunk and twisted in the gold of Osidian’s mask. Osidian slid forward, forcing the Oracles to move from his path. Carnelian followed, onto the road that curved off between the piers and the stable vaults. Hawsers now ran out from each vault, which they had to step over. Up on the piers men were greasing stone trackways and the bone-lined channels in which ropes ran as taut as bowstrings.